By FRED KRONER
We live in a complicated world.
Five months ago, we didn’t give a second thought to attending concerts or crowding into a 90,000-seat venue for a ball game. We gathered regularly for reunions, weddings and funerals.
Restaurants and nightclubs were full of happy patrons who lacked the foresight to know how their lives would change in the weeks ahead.
Our life was what we knew, what we expected, what we anticipated.
Until it changed.
Ball games went away. Concerts were postponed. Restaurants were closed, some to never reopen.
The school year – at least the classroom portion – ended abruptly. When it will resume remains in doubt.
The interruption of school, courtesy of the global COVID-19 pandemic, took away from students many of the most memorable moments of the final semester of the school year.
The final concert didn’t happen. Nor did the final play. Class trips, or group excursions, were canceled.
There was no Prom, no senior recognitions, no traditional graduation ceremony where you walked across the stage as family and friends could be heard yelling, “You did it.”
This is the year they didn’t do it. Not any of it.
As adults, we recognize and appreciate the significance of these final-semester high school memories: your senior Prom date whom you haven’t spoken to since you left the dance that night, winning the final home game of your prep career, the post-graduation party at the local ice cream shop.
These subjects seem to be among the first topics of conversations decades later when alumni gather to reflect on “the good ol’ days.”
We can all imagine – and even accept – missing out on one of these milestone events due to an unforeseen circumstance.
An injury, which requires nine months of rehab, can prematurely end an athletic career. A sudden illness can sideline us for the last performance with the ensemble. Weather-related issues can ruin the chance for a proper Senior Night send-off ceremony.
However, when everything goes away at once, without a clear time for return, it’s too much to fathom and process.
Unlike specific examples such as an illness or injury, the COVID-19 has affected everyone, regardless of whether they have contracted it. Senior citizens in assisted living are locked away in their rooms, unable to see relatives except through a glass window.
Many families have been isolated at home, seldom leaving except to get the necessities. Surgical procedures have been delayed.
It’s not just students who have had their schedules disrupted. Work shifts – and locations – have been altered for a large number of people, and that is if they are fortunate enough to have kept their jobs.
Unemployment rates are at record highs.
Our daily focus has switched from enjoying the day to staying safe.
Those of us who have been out and about are generally accompanied by a mask, which doesn’t allow those whom we see to know whether we are smiling at them or sticking out our tongue.
And, with our hearts touched by the frustrations of our children for what they have missed out on at school, some of us conjure up ways in which a bit of normalcy can return for them, even if just for an evening.
Maybe it was a pickup basketball game between kids in the neighborhood. Maybe it was gathering the family to celebrate a milestone anniversary. Maybe it was an evening for some teen-agers to showcase the outfits they bought for Prom as they spent time together.
Maybe it seemed like a good idea. Maybe it seemed like doing something was better than doing nothing for the teens, who had already missed so much.
Maybe different decisions would be made in retrospect.
We know how the story played out. More cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed among Mahomet residents in the past two weeks than in the past two months. Many — if not all — of the cases have been traced to the Proms.
How much more the virus will spread remains to be seen. Nor are the long-term effects known for those who recover.
It’s an example of how good intentions can lead to a bad outcome.
Many times, we berate and criticize those who do nothing. At other times, we berate and criticize those who do something.
It’s a complicated world we live in and it’s not likely to be simplified again any time soon.
